M.I.A.
"M.I.A." is the 13th episode of Season 4 and the 81st produced hour of Person of Interest. It originally aired on February 3, 2015. Synopsis Reese and Root’s hunt for Shaw takes them to a small town in upstate New York where it becomes apparent that not everything is as idyllic as it seems. Also, Fusco teams with a former POI to tackle the newest number. Origin of the Title M.I.A. is the acronym for Missing In Action, a military term used to describe troops who cannot be found or have not returned to base after an engagement. In this case, Shaw can be termed M.I.A. because the team cannot determine her whereabouts, or whether she is dead or alive. Main Plot Points The events in this episode are in Machine point of view. Episode Notes * Root refers to Shaw's situation as Schrödinger's cat. Schrödinger's cat is a paradoxical logic problem: when does a cat, locked in a box with a device that will eventually kill it, definitively become either dead or alive? Drawn from quantum mechanics, the study of quantities that can change only so much, and no more, it was initially applied to the physical state of matter. In more popular use, it has become an aphorism referring to situations analogous to a state of limbo. However, unlike limbo, Schrödinger's cat asks a critical question: when does the uncertainty end, and the cat become one or the other, dead or alive? To the team, Shaw is neither dead nor alive until they know which, leaving her, and them, in an unresolved state which each must reconcile for themselves. Only we, the audience, know which is true. * Finch refers to Maple being Samaritan's ant farm. Finch is referring to a formicarium, a glass-walled device where the observer can watch a colony of ants form tunnels through material contained within the device. In the United States, the best known of these is Uncle Milton's Ant Farm, a toy popularized in the 1960s which allowed children to observe the activities of an ant colony inside the green, plastic device. Advertised as giving children hours of entertainment (and hinting at the toy as an alternative to television), Uncle Milton's Ant Farms are still available for purchase from toy and hobby stores today. Category:Season 4 Category:Episodes Category:Season 4 Episodes Production Notes Although the Person of Interest trilogy of episodes was promoted by CBS as ending with , writer Ashley Gable tweeted that it was actually a quadrilogy, ending with this episode. Bloopers and Continuity Errors * At the end of the episode, Root takes the phone to her right ear, but she's deaf from that ear. Music Trivia Quotes *"Luck is in the air." (Reese, to Root) * "If this is the afterlife, it sucks." (Shaw, to Greer) * "I sincerely hope you managed to get some rest, my dear Sameen. You're going to need it." (Greer, to Shaw) * "I'm good with computers." (Root) * "A little beastliness is just the thing now and then." (Root) * "I want to hold out hope. But hope is painful. We may never find her." (Finch, to Root) * "We need an answer. I need an answer. If Sameen is alive or if she's dead." (Root, to Finch) Media File:Person of Interest - Small Towns es:M.I.A. it:M.I.A. Category:Season 4 Category:Episodes Category:Season 4 Episodes